Random Thoughts from a Confused Mind

This blog will be a set of stray thoughts that I might have had or will make up otherwise ...

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Ten Minutes ...

Based on my lunch time conversation. Must mention that the food was good too :)

Just ten minutes. And that can change it all.

My parents had a love marriage. My father was trying to catch my mother's attention for a looooong time. Finally they bumped into each other at a common friend's house. What if mom didn't go to that house that day? What if it was one of those days when my dad woke up in the morning and just dint feel like doing anything? You know, the days when you wake up and think of excuses to avoid your entire day's commitments. But they both felt like visiting that friend's place. They both landed up at the same time and somehow, at that instant moment, my otherwise reticent dad gathered enough courage to ask my mom out.

Two unknown people bump into each other in an empty classroom. Somehow they arrived early on that day alone. They got ten minutes to spend with each other before hundreds of pairs of eyes started pouring in with slanted looks. And they fell in love. Ten minutes is all it took for him to lose his heart.

She woke up and her parents showed her photographs of seven new "prospectives". She was getting tired with this daily drama. She randomly chose the clean shaven guy from the top. They met. They spoke. They had abundant amounts of coffee. They laughed. They cried. They got married. She now thinks no man could keep her this happy. Ten minutes of frustration is all it took to set the ball rolling.

I've heard of chance encounters in coffee shops. My sister's love life began with an accident she got injured in. Movie-like romances have originated in dark movie theatres where one single guy, after deciding for ten minutes, decided to take the seat on the left as opposed to the one on the right. Fifteen minutes later the rest of the theatre filled up except for the one seat next to him. Five minutes later she walked in and was forced to sit beside him. Three hours later they were the only ones who walked out smiling after the movie with the sinking ship finally got over.

But what if ... what if my dad got cold feet in those ten minutes and my mom had left? What if that guy didn't feel like attending a Physics class that morning? What if the girl shouted at her parents for bugging her every morning with proposals and stormed out of the room instead? What if the girl in the movie theatre came in early and sat in some other place?

Somewhere there is a man/woman for all of us that we might eventually end up with. Someone we never knew till one instance of time. Someone who we'll never forget thereafter. And even ten minutes before we first meet (met) this person, we have no idea of what this was going to be the beginning of. And that thought is so overwhelmingly powerful and fascinating to me.

"What if my soul mate just crossed my cubicle while I spent ten minutes boring you people with my thoughts?" I asked my lunch mates. MJ, my group mate, smiled. "Maybe if you wait here for another ten minutes you'll see your dream person." I looked around for the next thirty minutes. Unless my dream woman was a forty year old visiting lady who was searching for the receptionist's desk, I don't think I found her.

"Which is why you should go home ten minutes early tonight. Maybe you will meet your soul mate then," J, said.

"If I go home ten minutes early tonight and find my soul mate sitting at home, indeed I'll be overjoyed," I said. "But then I'll instantly call the cops and freak out because how did my soul mate manage to sneak into my house when I was not there????"

@qs-ji - i have had both the first and third thought myself - and hope it is the latter one :D

@anon - i know that you are actually Kareena Kapoor. if i was in your place i would feel reticent to leave Shahid too but then it is something you have to do. i am giving you ten minutes ot call him up and say adios - cool?

@pu - my last post was on crap - literally! and still people are accusing me of being soft? do you really want a post on soft crap buddy? :))

I met my husband of ten years through a online penpal ad I posted in 1995. He sent me his first email and I had wanted to hit *delete* but liked his name. So I sent a reply and here we are having our 4th child together. :)

BTW, have you heard of the movie, "Sliding Doors" Watch it. pretty interesting.

My thoughts....soulmates like happiness and butterflies (remember those Hallmark style posters?) flit away while you chase them. Settle down and enjoy the scenery and they'll alight by your side (I hope!!!)

Oh my God... I didnt expect a post of this kind from you.. you somehow dont come across as a mushy kinda guy who would believe in such cute fundas.. (I believe in them coz I am not a guy!)Something cute in this post.. is it a man\'s search for his soulmate?? *scratching chin like the thinker*

And as Gems always thinks, Soulmate concept does exist in real life and not in Chopra/Johar movies... atleast I believe in it, and am trying best that Gems too starts believing in it.. *looks around to see if Gems is reading*

Ah....the "what ifs" of life! Kind of like the movie Sliding Doors. Makes you wonder. But I'm happy for the most part for all the things that do happen because of "cosmic" fate or whatever else, than sit back and wonder about what didn't.

I met mine at a marriage I wasn't supposed to be going to. The ten minutes story here is that the girls father given a very rainy situation in their home town decided to have the wedding in my hometown. The funnier part of the story is that I had already met him once before but was too busy to notice. Moral of story: If you are meant to be then things happen. BTW nice blog. Been reading it every now and then...

The notion of a soulmate is both comforting and nerve-wracking at the same time. What if we shrug off a blind date, only to be plagued with thoughts questioning whether or not he/she could've been our soulmate? What if our soulmate was the person we just ended a relationship with? In some ways, I believe it's dangerous to hold tight to the idea of a soulmate (the constant searching, wondering, hoping). It could lead you to question past relationships and judge current flings/friends/dates as though they are the soulmate.

I think I'm residing myself to just rolling with life, going with the flow. If in fact soulmates do exist and I have not yet found mine, then, if I am supposed to find him I have faith that I will. If they don't exist, then all love basically revolves around geography. If I lived in Seattle, I would probably meet and fall in love with someone that I met there. But since I live in Texas and plan to for the next few years, chances are I will meet my next love here. Whether or not he will be my soulmate is yet to be discovered.

on the first read i felt as if i was given to read the script for an upcoming Karan johar movie`s trailer.On the second read, yeah, the "ten-minute" thing does exist although it doesnt hold only for soulmates. Like, i can think of "what if i had decided to take up another course , in the last ten minute of my admission, i wud never have met my bestest frens".....must say nice post....pretty soft and yeah, way different from the prev one.

Most relationships happen by chance.Not all of them succeed though. It's easy to fall in love...the hard part is to maintain that relationship and that doesn't happen in 10 minutes. You have to work on that.